Flexcar

Flexcar

File:Flexcar logo.png
Company type	Corporation
Industry	Automotive
Founded	2000
Headquarters	Seattle, Washington
Key people	Mark Norman, CEO J.J. Millard, CFO
Website	www.flexcar.com

Flexcar was a for-profit car sharing company, the oldest and second-largest in the United States behind Boston-based Zipcar, with which it merged in late 2007. This article discusses Flexcar's operations prior to the merger; most Flexcar operations were converted to Zipcar operations.

Overview

Flexcar can date its origins to March 1998, when its Portland, Oregon office was founded as a separate company (Car Sharing Portland) by David Brook; Flexcar itself was founded in January 2000 in Seattle, Washington as a public-private partnership with King County Metro. Flexcar was also present in Los Angeles; Gainesville; San Diego; Rochester; Atlanta; Pittsburgh; Tempe, Arizona (it served Phoenix in partnership with Arizona State University); San Jose; San Francisco; Philadelphia; Baltimore; Washington, D.C. and Columbus, Ohio, and, to varying degrees, in their suburbs. In addition, Flexcar was partnered with the non-profit I-GO carsharing service in Chicago.

Flexcar members chose a rate plan and paid an annual fee. The fees covered gasoline, insurance, maintenance, and cleaning. The vehicles were mostly late-model sedans, with other types, such as light trucks, hybrids, convertibles, and minivans, also available. Each vehicle had a home location, a reserved space either in a parking lot or on a street, typically in a highly-populated urban neighborhood (as well as, in some markets, on college or university campuses). Members reserved a car by web or telephone and used a key card to access the vehicle. The reservation was required to specify the pick up and return time, so others could schedule the vehicle. Vehicles were returned to their home location.

The company targeted people who made only occasional use of a vehicle as well as people who wanted occasional access to a vehicle of a different type than they use day-to-day. Flexcar claimed that the service was economically beneficial to anyone whose car would normally be away from their home about 15 hours a week, and did not need a car for their daily commute to work.

In several of its cities, the company had formed a public-private partnership with a local public transit entity. For example, in Seattle they were partnered with King County Metro Transit, which operates the area's buses. The company's advertising materials there said, "Ride Metro when you don't need a car. Use Flexcar when you do."

History

A Flexcar on Georgia Tech's campus.

A Flexcar-owned Honda Civic Hybrid in its reserved parking spot.

In 2003, Flexcar became the second company in the United States to become completely carbon neutral (the first company was Shaklee Corporation in 2001). By developing a partnership with American Forests, Flexcar ensured that enough trees are planted every year to offset the exhaust from its fleet of shared vehicles.

In August 2005, Revolution LLC, the holding company owned by Steve Case, founder of America Online, purchased a 60% holding interest in Flexcar. The company announced that this investment would lead to a rapid expansion of their operations.

In January 2007, Flexcar notified the member base of dramatic changes in the billing structure of their hourly rental. Doing away with their flat fee for set hour and unlimited mileage rates, they announced the formation of a "Variable Pricing" plan, which calculates cost on peak and non-peak hours with mileage limited to 150 miles per day. Members were notified on the organization's website and by letter that, "Variable pricing provides two benefits. Members with flexible schedules can now save money by reserving the car during its 'off-peak' time, in this case, on the weekend. Because some members will shift their trips to 'off-peak' times, the car’s availability should also improve during its 'peak' times as well."

On October 30, 2007, Flexcar executives announced a merger with car-sharing rival Zipcar. The merger consolidated the operations of the two corporations. Executives from both companies, in the announcement of the merger, stated that the Flexcar headquarters in Seattle would be closed, possibly resulting in the loss of jobs as operations transferred to Zipcar's headquarters in Boston.[1].

Seattle

Flexcar had 15,000 members in Seattle, about 2.5% of that city's population. It had proven popular among those who live in downtown Seattle or the nearby densely populated Capitol Hill and First Hill.

The company had also started an initiative to convince Downtown Seattle employers to join their program as business members rather than maintaining their own car fleets. Other market segments included placing vehicles at transit stations to provide "last mile" connectivity between transit and suburban office locations and providing subsidized vehicle access as part of low-income "jobs access" programs.

Portland

In April 2001, Flexcar became the first car-sharing company in the U.S. to expand to a second city by acquiring CarSharing Portland in Portland. At the time, Flexcar's customer base in Seattle included over 1300 members sharing 40 cars. Carsharing Portland, which began business in March 1998, had at the time of its acquisition over 500 members with 25 vehicles in and around downtown Portland.

The last statistics provided by Flexcar's website showed that the service in Portland has grown to include over 130 vehicles, including the Pearl District, Old Town Chinatown; close-in eastside neighborhoods such as the Lloyd District, Hawthorne, and Brooklyn; and downtown Vancouver, Washington.

See also

• Carsharing
• List of carsharing operators
• Zipcar
• Transportation in Seattle
• Transportation in Portland, Oregon
• Transportation in Los Angeles
• I-GO

References

• "Iacocca, Case sign on with Flexcar". Seattle Post-Intelligencer. 2005-08-31. Retrieved 2005-12-22.
• "Seattle's Flexcar merges with rival Zipcar". Seattle Times. 2007-10-30. Retrieved 2007-10-31.

External links

• Official site
• Seattle-Based Flexcar Acquires CarSharing Portland
• Seattle's Flexcar merges with rival Zipcar